ABOLITION OF FLOGGING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23830, 9 June 1939, Page 17

ABOLITION OF FLOGGING

WOMEN VOTE AGAINST IT UNDER-SECRETARY HECKLED (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, May 11. The interesting spectacle was seen in London this week of an Undersecretary being heckled by women of the Conservative and Unionist Association for supporting the abolition of flogging. Lady Astor. who also spoke against flogging, was howled down. Captain Osbert Peake. Un*3r-secre-tary for Home Affairs, said that in this enlightened age those who wish to retain the power to impose flogging must produce very powerful arguments. The needless infliction of pain on any human being is a thihg to be avoided. He was at once assailed by cries of “No” and “What about the victim? ” The hubbub continued, and the, chairman had to appeal to the women to listen to Captain Peake in silence. He said that there were some crimes so horrible that their blood boiled at the very thought of them, and they thought’ nothing was too bad for the culprit. “ But once we let ourselves be swayed by that sort of emotion,” he said, “ then no penal reform can ever be introduced into this country" The Government believed that future experience would justify the proposals in the bill. “Howls” at Lady Astor Lady Astor, M.P., was interrupted almost from the moment she began until she left the microphone. She told the delegates that until they had read the report of the Departmental Committee they would make a grave mistake in fighting the bill.- Here there were cries, “We have read it.” Lady Astor then declared that the Home Secretary had won the support and admiration of every social worker in every political party. She greeted a chorus of “No ” with the retort, “Will you allow me to speak in silence and do your cheering afterwards?" But there were more calls from the back of the hall, and Lady Astor shouted into the microphone, “Too often in this hall have I been howled down, and in four or five years you have regretted your action. I am not in the least frightened by your howls.” The chairman appealed to the delegates to give Lady Astor a fair hearing. When Lady Astor said if they had seen corporal punishment administered ♦hey would think deeply before asking for it to be enforced there was an outburst of laughter from some parts of the building. Obviously annoyed by these repeated jeers, she cried, “ The more I see of you. the more I hear of you, it is quite obvious that you are getting a little mixed over this subject.” Again there was laughter. Lady Astor said that flogging had been abolished in Scotland, and sexual crime had decreased, as compared with England. There were more interjections. and Lady Astor began appealing to the meeting. “I beg of you to hear me,” she said. The chairman rang the bell to indicate that Lady Aster’s time had expired. but she continued to try to address the conference. Women, however. began stamping their feet and clapping their hands. The bell rang again. and Lady Astor. with, one parting shot, shouted into the microphone. “Will you please read the Departmental Committee’s report? ” She returned to her seat waving her haiii to the delegates. A resolution was carried by a large majority deploring the proposed abolition of corporal punishment, except in cases of prison assault; it incorporated an amendment that courts should be allowed to order corporal punishment “for violence against person.”